Century Old Style Font

Morris Fuller Benton designed Century Oldstyle between 1908 and 1909, according to Adobe’s family description. The design relates to Century Expanded proportions while adopting old-style serif forms. The Century name spans separate designs and should not imply identical outlines.

Read the publisher’s family page for the source account and the edition currently offered. Keep a family name distinct from its particular release, width or optical branch.

The source identifies a relatively large x-height, short ascenders and descenders, and large capitals. Compare those proportions in a full paragraph rather than judging readability from a single enlarged letter.

Use the original publisher specimen to inspect those features. An alternative can share a broad role without having the same letter shapes, metrics or character coverage.

Try a magazine paragraph containing italic emphasis and numerals. EB Garamond and Lora are independent serif comparisons. Keep the same column width while comparing line endings, then adjust the size to the actual reading conditions.

For independent comparisons, try EB Garamond and Lora. Use the same wording and approximate output size. The related style guide provides broader design context.

Use Adobe Fonts to try the original and investigate the files, styles and terms for your intended workflow. This site does not distribute or serve Century Old Style font software.

The editable alternatives here have their own source profiles and included licenses. For the difference between a font file and copied characters, read Unicode text versus fonts.